Tips - soft, med, hard?

Nitrox11

Just south of reality
I searched and did not see anything about this. Can someone tell me what the differences are in soft, med, and hard tips? My guess is you are going to get much more spin with a soft tip but wanted to ask you guys. About to replace the shaft on my Schon and trying to decide on a tip. Thanks!
 
Getting good spin is about the quality of your stroke...not what kind or hardness of your tip. The average player, in a blind test, cannot tell the difference between tip hardnesses. Find something you like, and stick with it.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
Shooting with different tips results in a different feel. A soft tip you will feel the tip contact a lot more than a hard tip. It is just a preferance. I prefer medium tips.
 
I shot with LePros and Triangles for years and have recently started using medium layered tips like the Everest and Talisman medium. I notice a slightly softer feel, and the big advantage is fewer miscues when hitting off center. For me personally, these tips have improved my game. In general, the theory is that harder tips contact the ball for a shorter period of time (less compression under impact) and are less likely to alter the course of the ball, i.e. more accuracy especially on shots that are hit hard and/or far from the pocket. Softer tips are supposed to allow more control and spin with the price being decreased accuracy at distance under power. I did try an Elkmaster (very soft and non layered) and had a lot of trouble with accuracy on long shot shots. I don't know if it is the tip or the fact that you simply have to add speed to your stroke on some shots with a softer tip and the increased power tends to decrease accuracy. The medium layered tips seem to give a similiar "grip" without any loss of accuracy but that's just what I found, everybody is different. I'm very pleased with the Everest but everybody seems to have a tip that they swear by. Triangles and LePros work well but there are large inconsistencies in hardness from tip to tip and they seem to glaze over very quickly and require constant attention to avoid miscues. I do cue repair and I get a lot of requests for Moori mediums. I hope this helps.
 
Whats the best hard tip out there, something that sounds like concrete when you hit the ball??
 
cookie man said:
Whats the best hard tip out there, something that sounds like concrete when you hit the ball??

I don't know the answer to that. There are some tips that are specifically designed for breaking but I don't think they would be good for general play, you would miscue constantly. The hardest tip I've ever played with was a Sumo tip and I would guess that they may be the hardest tip that you could actually play with. I found it hard to use playing 14.1 where there are a lot of soft shots to be played at close range, it was hard to hit the ball slowly enough. Tiger makes a tip called the Sniper which is med/hard layered tips that a lot of people seem to really like and Moori makes a hard layered tip. There are so many tips out there today that it would be tough to try them all. At some point you are going to get diminishing returns, it's the same reason they make car tires out of rubber instead of hard plastic. You might pose your question in the cuemaker's forum, between all those guys they've seen every tip on the planet.
 
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